


crash down on me

by akaparalian



Category: Hockey RPF, Sports RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-11
Updated: 2014-05-11
Packaged: 2018-01-24 07:16:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1596254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akaparalian/pseuds/akaparalian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He gets the message at some time just before midnight, when he's on his way to bed and only glancing at his phone to make sure his alarm is set. Instead of the alarm, though, his eyes settle on the text alert that's just popped up at the top of the screen, and he can't really help it - the name at the top is Jonathan Drouin, so of course he opens it. He doesn't really think he can be blamed for that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	crash down on me

**Author's Note:**

> this was a fill for [the wild card matchups rarepair fest](http://hockeyrarepair.livejournal.com/) on lj, the prompt was "Mackinnon/Drouin, possessive kink", on which note i'm obliged to say, uh... sorry? this was intended to be much more porny but then my emotions sort of ran away with me, so, um. hopefully you like it anyway, anon. ;v;
> 
> thanks to [maggie](http://archiveofourown.org/users/leap4joyak/pseuds/leap4joyak) for the read-through, even though she's not properly in this fandom (not for my lack of trying, of course). <3
> 
> title from yellowcard's "ocean avenue", because... no, you know what, i don't actually have an excuse.
> 
> enjoy!

He gets the message at some time just before midnight, when he's on his way to bed and only glancing at his phone to make sure his alarm is set. Instead of the alarm, though, his eyes settle on the text alert that's just popped up at the top of the screen, and he can't really help it - the name at the top is Jonathan Drouin, so of course he opens it. He doesn't really think he can be blamed for that.

There's no actual text to the message, just a picture; Nate taps to bring it to full screen curiously, and with the sort of blissful innocence that evaporates mere seconds later and leaves rapt intensity in its wake. Really, he thinks even as he zooms in with his breath caught high in his throat, it isn't a provocative picture; it's the kind of thing Jo could just as easily have sent him over Twitter, and no one would have thought it was out of the ordinary. It's just a picture of a sweater, still fresh in the plastic wrapping and laying on top of the package it came in, and part of him feels kind of ashamed of how - how _into it_ he is, but he also can't help it, because that's _his_ sweater, with his name on the back in big block letters, sitting innocently on Jo's bedspread, and he - he really, really likes the implications of that. Really hopes he isn't reading too much into it, too, but - wow.

He sends back a question mark without even really thinking about it, fingers sliding over the screen independently of his brain, and Jo must have been waiting, because the response is gratifyingly quick despite the late hour. _i miss you,_ he reads from the harsh blue light of the screen, and something tightens even further in his stomach. This time, he's fully cognizant of his response - enough so to be hesitant, his fingers moving slowly, carefully, deliberately across the keyboard, but not enough to stop him from hitting send on _you could have just taken one of mine_ , and certainly not enough to stop himself from hoping that the implication of what he's feeling tense and taut in his stomach is really there.

This time, the reply takes longer, and when it comes it's even shorter: _next time_. There's something about that, though - next time. He thinks maybe he's not wrong in imagining this tightly-wound sense of, of slowly-building urgency, and even something beyond that, lower and more primal; thinks that Jonathan is almost certainly aware of the exact way it hits him to know that his name is going to be stretching across Jo's shoulder blades, blue and maroon draping across his torso, and those are _his_ colors, his _team_ , that's going to be _him_ on Jo's skin in a lot of real, primal ways. He thinks, staring at his dimly-glowing phone with a dry mouth and a warm, leaden weight settling into his gut, that this _could_ be him misunderstanding something innocent. But at this point? Knowing Jo, and knowing himself? He's doubting that more and more the longer he stares blankly at the screen.

He texts back a simple _good night_ and rolls over to go to sleep.

\---

The second message is there when he wakes up the next morning, his phone chiming gently at him only for him to poke it roughly until it shuts up. His head gets a little clearer almost instantly, though, when he sees the new message alert again, Jo's name blinking cheerfully at him from the too-bright screen. He does fix the brightness before he opens the message, but that doesn't do much to make it any less striking when he does open it; it's not even a very good picture, off-kilter and out of focus, but somehow that makes it a little better. It's just Jo, clearly in bed and barely awake, in Nate's sweater, the Avs logo barely visible in the lower corner of the image illuminated by early-morning sunlight streaming in from the right. It's not centered very well, only about half of Jo's face distinguishable, but that doesn't mean it doesn't hit him like a fucking brick to the head, and he has to give himself a very firm mental shake before he's put together enough to read the actual message itself rather than just stare at the picture.

The body of the message just says _good morning :)_ , and the emoticon makes his lips twitch up in return. He hesitates on what to send back, but he doesn't exactly have any of Jo's shirts around to truly respond in kind; he's in a fucking hotel in Minnesota, for God's sake, with Gabe in the next bed, and so he just texts back _morning_ before getting up to get dressed.

The day seems to drag on after that, with skate in the morning and then an afternoon and evening full of some of the guys who are more familiar with the area dragging the rest of them around to local hotspots. They get the evil eye from the locals a few times, but that's to be expected, and anyway Nate hardly notices; he's too wrapped up both constantly checking his phone to see if Jo's texted him, and trying to be engaged and stop thinking about whether or not there's a message waiting in his inbox. It turns out to be a moot point, anyway, because Jo seems to have settled on radio silence since that morning, so he carefully schools himself into being with his teammates and enjoying the little break in their schedule.

He ends up caving before bed, though, leaning against the headboard checking his email and dutifully pretending he isn't wondering if Jo's going to sleep in the jersey again, completely ignoring the image his brain so thoughtfully provides of Jo stretched out in bed with Nate's sweater riding up above his hips, the whole thing permeated by a warm sense of… whatever they are. They haven't talked about it, not really, but it's been there for the longest time; they'd kissed after the Mem Cup and before the draft, and they'd shared a hotel room and slept curled around each other after they'd found out that they would be starting their careers in very different parts of a country that isn't even theirs. And now Jo is doing something - very deliberate, very intentional, and fuck, he's not really capable of ignoring it or pretending it's normal, and it's only been a day and he's already beginning to wonder why he's even bothering to try and act like Jo wrapped up in his name and his colors isn't something he's been semi-consciously dreaming of for, shit, years.

Screw it, he decides, and gives in to texting Jo a blunt but hopefully not uncomfortable _are you wearing it again?_

The reply is nowhere near instantaneous this time, and he screws around on Twitter for a few minutes while he waits, but it comes soon enough: _is this your version of sexting?_

He supposes that was pretty deserved, but he snorts and sends back _no, shut up. i was just wondering_ anyway, because asking about the jersey is one thing and "What are you wearing?" is another thing altogether. He thinks.

_it's fine._ Jo replies quickly enough, and even through text Nate gets the distinct feeling he's getting laughed at. He gets a second response on the heels of the first, though, and his breathing quickens involuntarily when he comprehends _yeah, i'm wearing it._ He almost wants to pinch himself, check that he's not dreaming, because this isn't - this _definitely_ isn't Jo teasing him, setting up for some long-distance practical joke or laughing over his phone at what a weirdo his best friend is. This is something else entirely, and it's not anything they've done before, together or - in Nate's case, at least - separately. 

That's - this is all fucking huge, and Nate has more or less no idea whatsoever how to respond. He really, really doesn't, but he sends a text back anyway: _good._ It feels weird, to say that, like he's _validating_ something, but it also feels weirdly _right_ , warm and heady. He's still aware, of course, that he's not alone, not even bordering on alone, and part of him feels ridiculously embarrassed and sinkingly guilty when he considers that he's having this conversation with a roommate just a few meters away - with his _captain_ just a few meters away, no less - but mostly, he's just… well, he frankly finds all of this really incredibly hot. Especially Jo. Jo is the most important part of that - Nate doesn't get off on random people in his jersey, or whatever. This isn't that kind of ego trip, he's sure of that much; his wouldn't be happening without Jo, wouldn't be something he felt if one of his other friends from Halifax bought a sweater to support him. It's got nothing to do with it being his number and his name and everything to do with it being his number and his name _on Jo_.

Realizing that for certain takes something out of him, and he feels it like a punch to the gut, but at least he's not responsible for saying goodnight this time; Jo takes care of that for him, tells him to get a good night's sleep and play well tomorrow, and he turns his phone to silent and discovers that something about the warm, satisfied feeling in his chest makes it surprisingly easy to just drift off like it's nothing.

\---

Of course, he could have done with the warm, satisfied feeling sticking around for maybe a little longer.

The series is literally fucking insane as a whole - they give it a really good go, and he knows he should be happy they made it as far as they did, knows that he should be glad the team that was scraping the bottom of the barrel the year before had taken him all the way to the playoffs this year, and he _is_ ; there's still nothing like it, and he loves the game as much as he ever has and he loves this team and he loves his teammates and he feels like there's even more in the future, but it's still incredibly fucking disappointing to be out in round one, especially when they were so close to making it through, and _especially_ when he feels like a good portion of the blame settles on his shoulders. Sure, he's only one guy, and he's come around a little bit since those damn postgame interviews after game seven where they all looked like sad, sweaty zombies, but he still _knows_ he could have done more. But, he's decided now that the abject shock and disappointment have faded a little, that's what next year is for.

He goes back to Denver to get things settled out and wrap up the things he needs to wrap up, but he's also making plans to head back home for the duration of the summer. His parents are obviously excited about it, and he's looking forward to it, too, to going back to someplace he doesn't have to learn in order to navigate. He's missed Canada itself, too, almost more than he thought he would; the two countries are similar, obviously, but they're by no means the same, and a few road trips up north aren't enough to make up with being well and truly away from home. He'd gotten a taste of that at Shattuck, obviously, but Colorado's even more different, more distant, and he hadn't been a fourteen-year-old at boarding school in Denver, he'd been an adult, expected to know his way around the city and get to know the feel of it. And he had, and he could _feel_ the Mile High City worming its way under his skin, but that didn't mean he didn't miss Nova Scotia.

Jo hasn't texted him since after game seven, and even then it was just a brief little thing, a quiet note of support and sympathy that he hadn't been able to bring himself to respond to. He - he should really text back, now, but there's something different about it now, after that brief and confusing foray into what's apparently a possessive streak that Nate didn't quite know he had, and after he hadn't been able to pull out the win, and some part of him had gotten so used to _winning_ with Jo, still hasn't quite dissociated Jo's face with the bright, loud happiness of a good solid win. So he calls his parents to let them know when exactly he'll be back in town, and he gets a few last things settled out, and he says goodbye to Gigueres large and small, but he doesn't text Jo.

It's been almost two weeks, actually, by the time he finally does. He finally steels himself and sends off a quick text right as he's boarding the plane to leave Denver - just _i'm coming home tonight_ , without anything else in the way of clarification, and he puts his phone in airplane mode the instant he's sure it's sent, opening up 2048 in preparation for a few long hours of mindless games to pass the time. Maybe it's cowardly, he thinks absently, and maybe it's kind of mean, but it's not like he's _avoiding_ Jo, not really, just - a lot's changed, even more so now than it had the last time they talked, and he's beginning to think that whatever weird multi-day conversation they were having wasn't really something they should be doing over text. So he just sits there and passes the flight away playing stupid games and napping against the window when he gets the chance, and when he lands he very carefully doesn't flip his phone out of airplane mode, instead choosing to hold out hope that his parents will be there when he makes his way out to baggage claim.

Turns out he was right, and they are, but they're not alone; he sees them all when he rounds the corner passing through the security checkpoint, rubbing tiredly at his eyes with one hand and tightly gripping the handle of his bag with the other, and it doesn't even occur to him at first to be surprised that Jo's there with them. A moment later, though, when his brain catches up with his eyes, just a hairsbreadth too tired from a day of travelling to process in real time, he kind of stops breathing for a second, just staring across the room unnoticed. Jo looks - really good, laughing and chatting with Nate's mom, and fuck, _fuck_ , that's not the same as the jersey and that's something he's seen a hundred times before but it's still so, so good, something he sort of distantly realizes he might want to see for a long, long time.

Well, that settles any lingering doubts he might have had about this whatever-it-is with Jo being a just-bros thing, anyway.

They notice him a second later, all at once, and he's almost tripping over his own feet in a way that he hasn't since he was just a little kid, but it's so incredible seeing them all there together - Mom and Dad and Sarah but also Jo, and he maybe wasn't expecting to miss all of them this much, not after the two years at Shattuck's and not now that he's a legal adult with a job and everything. He's not actually sure who he hugs first, but it sort of feels like bumper cars for a minute there, bouncing from person to person and feeling a little bit like his face is going to crack open with the force of his relieved grin; he notices for sure when he gets to Jo, though, because Jo holds him out at arm's length for a second before he actually pulls him in for a hug, and for a heavy moment they just sort of stare at each other, residual grins still resting on their faces but less important than the way the bustle of the airport has sort of calmed down for a minute and they haven't seen each other in almost a _year._

"Hey there, big shot," Jo says eventually, and Nate doesn't actually have time to respond before he's being pulled in for a hug that's just this side of bone-crushing. That's okay, though; he's missed that, and he lets himself bury his face in the crook of Jo's shoulder and breathe in for just the shortest second before he pulls back, smiling.

"Hey yourself," he replies, the easy pass-and-return almost second nature at this point, the kind of thing they say almost every time they see each other, and the grin he gets in return is so brilliant that it takes him a second to process when his dad says the bags are starting to come around and they should go take a look.

He's not actually altogether sure how everything goes after that; obviously they fetch his bags, numerous even though he'd left some of his stuff back in Denver in storage, and then they pile into his mom's car with the all kids crowded together in the backseat like they're still fourteen because Nate's crap is taking up the place where the third row would have gone, but beyond the basics everything is a bit hazy. He spends most of the drive back getting chattered at a at a mile a minute and doing his best to respond in kind, but he still isn't quite recovered from the postseason, the last dregs of exhaustion still settled in his bones, and travelling alone still takes more out of him than travelling with a team, and he hasn't eaten since the paltry airline-provided lunch he scarfed earlier, so he's a little slow on the uptake. 

They don't go out for dinner, instead going straight home to where there's lamb stew waiting in a crockpot, and Nate _almost_ laughs, because not only is it his favorite but it's the exact same recipe his mom's been making after hard losses since he was too young to even get that _upset_ about hard losses. Granted, those two things go hand in hand - it's consolation stew _because_ it's his favorite, but the dual dose of 'welcome home' and 'sorry about the game' feels really, really good.

It's even better with Jo there, and he feels a little guilty for thinking that; he hasn't seen his family in a while either, beyond the occasional dinner whenever they could manage to make it out to one of his games, which isn't the same as sitting down at the dining room table and eating something his mom had cooked with a side of Dad's latest attempt at a creative salad. He should probably be more focused on them than on Jo, rather than splitting his attention like he is, but… it's been long enough that he thinks Jo pretty much counts as family, too. He was waiting with them at the airport, and he's eating with them now, and he's even staying the night, a fact Nate catches on to between conversations as they all settle back into each other's presence in a way they haven't since before the preseason.

Dinner does end eventually, though, and Nate's all the way into the kitchen to put his dishes in the sink before he realizes with a jolt that Jo's going to be in his room. There's probably a sleeping bag on a pallet in there already, though something tells him they might not end up using it, and _that's_ certainly a thought that fizzles in his gut with something like expectation and something like nerves. Regardless, Sarah's going to be in her room, where they might usually have put Jo, so unless he wants the couch he's going to have to bunk with Nate.

It's not like they haven't done it before, he reasons with himself as he rinses out his bowl. They obviously have, countless times. But it's also different now - there's time and distance between them in a way there wasn't before, and also that goddamn sweater and the way it had looked stretched across Jo's shoulders, even in just the brief glimpses he'd been given, and he knows that all of that _means_ something. He doesn't quite know what that is yet, and maybe Jo doesn't either, or maybe he does, but whatever it is, it's not going to sort itself out while he's standing here letting the hot water run over his hands in an effort to kill time and delay the situation he feels like he's inevitably going to somehow manage to fuck up.

He shuts the water off with a sigh and heads upstairs, calling goodnight to his parents and Sarah as he goes.

Jo turns out to be ten steps ahead of him; he's there when Nate cautiously opens the door, feeling what's probably a ridiculous level of nervousness considering that this is, after all, _his_ bedroom. Sure enough, there's a sleeping bag on the floor, but it's not laid out neatly like it must have been a few moments ago. Jo's in the process of nudging it into a pile in the corner with one foot, and he doesn't even notice Nate standing in the doorway until he turns around, apparently satisfied with the extent to which he's declared his lack of intent to put the sleeping bag to any sort of use.

The smile he gets when Jo turns to face him is so incredible, though, that it barely occurs to him to be nervous about the sleeping bag being crumpled up in the corner, and he lets the door click shut behind him and hardly even notices when he locks it almost on instinct. Jo definitely notices, though, and something in his smile changes in a way that sends a distinct shiver down Nate's spine.

He swallows hard.

"It's really good to see you," he blurts out even as he takes a halting step forward to where Jo's still standing over the sleeping bag in the corner. He's not sure why that came out, exactly, other than that he suddenly felt like he needed to say _something_ and this, at least, is _true_. He's all the way across the room before Jo really gets a chance to respond, and suddenly they're in each other's space and Nate made it that way, but he's still not really sure how to deal with it.

Jo's studying him, head cocked and smile still tugging hungrily at the corners of his lips, but he doesn't say a word. Instead, he just leans forward - slowly, slowly, giving Nate time to stop it if he wants, and even though Nate wants nothing of the sort, has been waiting for probably years and certainly weeks for this to happen, wants to tell Jo that he's never not going to be a sure thing in every way he knows how, he's still grateful for the courtesy. He ignores it, though, and leans the rest of the way in himself.

He lets his eyes slip closed even as he turns his head slightly to slot their mouths together better and just sinks into it, one hand coming up to rest on Jo's waist and the other settling at the nape of his neck. This is different, he thinks dimly as his brain slowly grinds to a halt, from their sweaty, exuberant celebration after the Memorial Cup last year, and it's equally different from both the nervous energy just before the draft and the strange mix of elation, relief, and the knowledge that they were going to be well and truly split up that had set in afterwards. This is - warmer, for one thing, and both calmer and more urgent. There's a weird feeling of power when he licks into Jo's mouth that wasn’t there before, because Jo just _lets_ him, pressing forward so that they're touching from shoulders to thighs and opening his mouth so beautifully. He's not exactly passive, though; Nate jumps slightly when he feels hands come to settle firmly on his ass, and Jo pulls away to laugh at him.

"I guess you really are happy to see me," he teases, and Nate feels a flush rising in his cheeks even as the tangible proof that Jo feels the exact same way rubs against his thigh.

He's not sure how to respond to that, exactly, but he settles for scoffing gently and rocking forward into Jo's warm, solid weight, smacking a much lighter, much briefer kiss onto his lips and letting the grin he can feel tugging at his mouth spread wide. "Duh," he scoffs. "You knew that already."

Jo laughs again, a low chuckle that Nate can almost feel in his chest with the way they're plastered against each other, and maybe that's what gives him the courage to add, "Especially after - I mean," he cuts himself off, but Jo's looking at him now, eyes suddenly sharper than Nate's seen in a while, and so he finishes it out. "Especially after, um, that picture."

The look that spreads out over Jo's face makes saying that ridiculously humiliating sentence worth it, though; it's somewhere in the uncanny valley between wolfish and snuggly, and Nate's not even that surprised when Jo rolls his hips forward with an appreciative groan and leans in to nip softly at his lower lip, not with that expression bringing all the heat right back into his face from where it had just started to fade.

"I was hoping you'd like that," Jo breathes, just the slightest hint of amusement in his eyes, like he can tell _exactly_ what he's doing to Nate, what he's _been_ doing, but then he leans in for another good, solid, messy kiss and thoughts of all kinds fall by the wayside for the moment.

He pulls away after not nearly long enough, though, and hovers just a scant few centimeters from Nate's face, close enough that Nate tries to lean back in with a slight whine only to be foiled by a huff of laughter and a chastising pinch to his ass. He's about to complain, but then - "You like seeing me in your colors, baby?", and he's always kind of thought actually calling people _baby_ was kind of dorky but wow, turns out that it really works for him when it's Jo saying it and he's saying it like _that._

Nate can barely drag the mental cohesion together to do so much as nod, and he feels more than sees Jo's shit-eating grin right before he murmurs, "Your name, right? On _me_ ," and that sentence really doesn't even make much sense but Nate is the _farthest person_ from either noticing or caring about that right now, because Jo's so, so right about that and he wants him to know it. He feels like he should be saying something, too, finding something to respond that hopefully manages to convey some portion of the thoughts he's had rattling around in his head for _years_ \- not just the newer, still somehow stranger possessive thoughts, but the endless ways he's been telling himself since the first time they met that Jo is _incredible_ , that he's the kind of person Nate's not going to find more than once in a blue moon, that they fit together in more than just the ways that allow them to play beautiful fucking hockey. He wants to say that he's been in a different country, thousands of miles away, for almost a year but he still hasn't found anyone else he _wants_ like this.

Then again, he kind of thinks that if he tried to say any of that it would come out sounding really, really stupid, not least of all because his communication skills are suddenly very, very limited. So he settles instead for rocking his hips firmly against Jo's and sort of - settling his face into Jo's neck and trying to stifle his groans into the crease of skin there, as all the while Jo keeps up a stream of increasingly dirty whispering into his ear, telling him all manner of things that mostly all boil down to the idea that he likes the idea of being marked as Nate's just as much as Nate does, and that he _wants_ Nate to like that idea, wants him to feel good about it. Wants him to feel good in general, really, and when things start taking that specific tone Nate makes a very distinct high-pitched noise that he's not altogether proud of and manages to get them both rolled over onto the bed, spilling onto the covers and grappling with each other's clothes as they go.

They don't succeed at getting quite as naked as Nate was hoping before they crash down, but he _is_ able to pin Jo to the mattress and sink his teeth firmly into the meat of his neck and is rewarded with a sharp, appreciative groan, so he counts it as a win anyway. Jo's gone from slipping his hands into Nate's back pockets and squeezing to fumbling with the front of his pants in the time that it's taken to get started on sucking a good spreading bruise into his neck, and that seems like a good direction for this to be going, so Nate pulls back somewhat regretfully to kneel over him and work on shoving both of their jeans as far down as they need to go.

With the both of them working together, even haphazardly, it goes faster than it had with just Jo's hands working the somewhat stiff fabric, and the first fumbling pressure of Jo's fingers on his cock is a relief that he'd somehow almost managed to forget he was waiting for. He falls forward with an embarrassing moan before managing to catch himself on his forearms, and Jo laughs a little breathlessly in his ear, his grip getting surer and surer, firm and twisting and too dry but in a really, really good way.

"Want me to go put the sweater on?" he pants into Nate's ear, his tone only half-teasing, and Nate's hips stutter forward at the thought. He doesn't actually want that, and tries to say so by glaring halfheartedly for a second before working his own hand into Jo's fly, because then the damn thing would probably end up with inconvenient stains and Jo wouldn't be able to wear it again, and that's a pretty terrible thought. The image of it is still pretty great, though, with Jo all spread out and flushed deep red and covered in Nate, Nate's colors and _Nate's name_ \- it's almost as good as the real thing, panting underneath him and fisting his cock and letting out these abortive gasps every few seconds. Almost, but not quite.

Jo sort of loses his ability to speak in full sentences after that, and though part of Nate is mourning that loss, most of him is equally distracted by the feeling of Jo's hand around him, a firm grip that he can't help but buck into, and the way it feels when Jo does the same to him; this is messy, artless and quickly spiraling out of whatever tenuous control they might've had into something that proves exactly how teenage they still are, but it's perfect, too much and not enough all at once. Their breathing is getting more and more ragged, out of sync but equally frantic, and Nate can feel himself getting closer and closer to the edge. He makes a warning sort of noise, note quite a word, but close, and Jo mumbles something back that sounds like an affirmative in between trying to muffle his groans in his free hand.

Next time, Nate thinks with surprising clarity given how close he is to coming, they're going to do this somewhere they won't have to muffle themselves, because he wants to _hear_ that, wants yet more sensory proof that he and Jo are somehow capable of taking each other apart like this. That thought's swept away moments later, though, when Jo suddenly squeezes him tight enough that he has to stifle the urge to shout and comes all over Nate's hand and his sheets, fuck, where they're going to sleep _together_ , and the possibility of a wet spot probably shouldn't be what gets him off but in some weird way, probably because it's Jo, it _does_ , and he once again has to catch himself on his forearms to avoid crushing Jo to death as his arms give out, Jo still working him through it and turning his head slightly so Nate has room to bury his face in his neck and muffle the utterly embarrassing noises he's making.

They lay there together for a long minute, not saying anything but slowly winding down together, their breathing steadily calming and starting to match up. After a moment of propping himself up on his forearms, Nate carefully lets himself settle onto Jo's chest, and not long after there's a hand combing through his hair at the nape of his neck, where it's long enough to curl over and feels really, really good when someone's slowly running their hands through it. He sighs contentedly, face still nestled in the crook of Jo's neck, and feels more than hears the quiet scoff of laughter he gets in return, right before a much more honest contented hum.

It takes a little while, but eventually Jo shifts slightly, getting more comfortable, and lets out a long, steady breath. "I really did miss you too, you know," he says slowly, and Nate shuffles to the side a little so he can sort of look up at his face while he talks. "It's been - really strange, you know, back on the same team but without you. That's why I - with the jersey…" He trails off, neutral tone not doing much to disguise the flush in his cheeks and the way his fingers are now well and truly tangled in Nate's hair, thumb running softly over the top.

"I know," Nate says after a beat of pause, just as slowly, just as quietly, and - maybe he doesn't know exactly, maybe of the two of them, he's the one who got a fresh start, and maybe that makes it a little easier, but it also makes it that much harder, knowing that in some way he left Jo doing the same old thing behind him and had to cut a new trail for himself. So maybe it's not exactly the same, but he _does_ get it, he does know, and he turns his head to press a kiss to Jo's jaw. It's an awkward angle, and they're both still sort of awkwardly half-covered in come and going to need to deal with that soon, and they should probably have an actual conversation about exactly what's going on at some point rather than just admitting they missed each other and jerking each other off, but for now it's enough, more than enough. 

He turns his head into the warm, solid place between Jo's neck and his shoulder, breathes in deeply, and feels the corners of his mouth twitch up into a smile. They've got all summer to figure their shit out properly, he figures, so he'd rather not worry about it right now and instead focus on maybe getting up in the second to get some warm washcloths from the bathroom and change into proper sleep clothes and finally get some rest. Besides, he thinks as he finally shoves himself back into something resembling a sitting position to go get started on being a good, responsible whatever-he-is to Jo and cleaning them both up, they're already off to a great start.


End file.
